I closed the back door of the cab behind me, and signaled to the driver to resume his course, Mrs. Munehara remaining seated inside.
We had only gone about a hundred meters, before I asked to get out of the vehicle. And once I was on my way back to the residence we had left from, I thought about what had happened a few minutes before.
"So, am I pretty?" She had asked me with a slight smile, while spinning around several times.
I stared at her curiously. She was dressed exactly the same, so what did she mean by that?
However, as I detailed her outfit from head to toe, one detail jumped out at me.
"Did you put on a wig?" I asked, not really understanding what she wanted to accomplish by wearing her hair like that.
Her long brown hair had indeed disappeared in favor of black hair styled in a bowl cut, which changed her overall silhouette.
Like this, she almost looked like...
"I'm reminding you of someone right now, aren't I?" She had smiled mischievously.
True that she did. At the time, she had reminded me of Mrs. Munehara. Well, as long as you didn't look too closely. But I didn't understand why she felt the need to simper in front of me to show me that.
Maybe it was her personality? Or maybe she was trying to get some kind of reaction from me?
Then, I accompanied Ms. Munehara outside, where a cab was already waiting for her in front of the entrance. And following the detective's instructions, I got in with her, before getting off alone two blocks away.
All this, in order to make believe to anyone observing us, that the detective and myself had left the place.
However, was this really the right thing to do?
Why was she giving me such an important role, being the person who would catch the stalker? Surely she would have been more efficient than me at the task, since she was used to this kind of business.
In my case, my talents were limited to correcting and proofreading texts sitting in front of a computer all day. I also hadn't practiced any combat sports, or even self-defense. So, could I single-handedly neutralize another human being?
With so little confidence in myself, I found myself at the intersection of the street passing in front of the entrance of the residence, and another street, smaller, leading to a separate area of the neighborhood.
Many people were already sleeping, judging by the very few lights still on in some houses.
It was almost 10pm, and the air had cooled down a lot, meanwhile. It wasn't as cold as winter, but that didn't stop a shiver from running down my neck.
Maybe I should have dressed more warmly. That is, if I had known in advance that I would be forced to stay out so late.
A single car passed by me, momentarily illuminating me with its headlights, before continuing further down the street. I followed it with my eyes, or rather, with my only functioning eye, seeing the light beam lick the facades of several houses and buildings on its moving trajectory.
It amused me enough, to see several shapes suddenly emerge from the darkness where the lack of public lighting had plunged them. Like a game, where we would try to guess what would appear, before it was revealed.
Until I saw a black shape hanging on the corner of a building.
It was very brief, the car passing quickly.
But I recognized the shape as a human being.
The stalker was there! Still hiding behind the corner of a building; observing the residence that was on my left, and more particularly Mrs. Munehara's apartment, where the light had remained switched on.
Turning my gaze quickly to the window in question, I quickly saw the silhouette of a woman with short hair walking behind the drawn curtains.
The detective was right. From a distance, I would have really thought I saw Mrs. Munehara, if I hadn't known she was actually gone. And if the illusion was perfect in my eyes, it was surely perfect in the eyes of the stalker who was about a hundred meters away from me.
Without sudden movements, and with discretion, I then took the direction of a small street on my right, then engaged in a street parallel to the one where was the residence, and my target. And soon, I found the corresponding street, revealing in all its vulnerability the back of a stalker who didn't suspect for a single second that he was being observed.
However, I was aware that, even with all the grace in the world, I probably wouldn't be able to sufficiently muffle the sound of my shoes on the asphalt.
Thus, I made the most logical decision and took off my shoes.
I was again rather calm, in this kind of situation that would have surely put the nerves to the test for any normal person.
But once again, I was somehow devoid of that normality that people appreciated so much.
I found myself walking slowly, in my socks and in the middle of the night, in a neighborhood I didn't even know. All this, in order to catch a guy who, at the present time, was already less suspicious than me. But it didn't matter. As long as the locals didn't call the police and I didn't get arrested, everything would be fine. I just hoped I wasn't pushing my luck too far.
The seconds passed with an unreal slowness, as I approached the back of the suspect. As if time itself was slowing down. Perhaps the very fact that I was slowing my breathing altered my perception of time.
But in the end, I managed to get a good meter behind him, without him turning around.
Perhaps he was too focused on watching his victim from across the street.
He was dressed entirely in black, having pushed the vice to the point of wearing a cap and a black mask over his face, whose elastic bands I could see going around his ears.
However, just as I thought I could reach him with my fingertips, he suddenly straightened up, as if he had finished his observation, and was preparing to leave.
It was now or never.
Kicking him in the back of the knees, I knocked the man to the ground - his cap falling off the top of his head - and rushed at him, tackling him completely face down on the sidewalk. He was already trying to get up, thinking that I wasn't going to attack him any more. But he didn't knew me very well.
To perfect the capture of the stalker, I crouched down, before sitting down completely with all my weight on his back.
Never underestimate office workers who have to sit all day!
"What the hell are you doing!?" He exclaimed, outraged. "Let go of me!"
The voice sounded surprisingly... Young.
Strange...
I leaned forward slightly, and removing his mask from the suspect's face, could finally see him.
With surprise, I saw that the person struggling under my weight was a young man, probably still in high school considering his age.
I would have thought that stalkers were much older than that. But maybe it was me who had preconceived notions of what said stalkers might look like.
"Let me go!" exclaimed the teenager, struggling.
But I leaned a little more toward him, to add weight to his back.
I wasn't very agile, but I still knew that the weight of a healthy man like me was enough to tackle someone to the ground.
"I'm sorry, but we're going to hand you over to the police," I said calmly.
"The police?! I didn't do anything!" he shouted.
Didn't do anything? That was really too quick a contradiction.
I was reassured that this scene took place in the middle of the night, otherwise we would have attracted many passers-by's stares, considering the ridiculousness of this situation.
"You're stalking the woman who lives in this residence," I explained while not giving a damn about the hands that were grabbing my legs in an attempt to move them.
"Stalking?! What's next?" he replied vehemently. "You've got the wrong guy!"
The young man was now trying to turn sideways to try to roll and escape from me, but he didn't succeed. I was still sitting on his back like a king on his throne. And the more he struggled, the more exhausted he became. Which was just fine with me.
He would resist less when I had to hand him over to the police.
"You sent this woman flowers, and when that wasn't enough, you called her every night," I explained while pulling my cell phone out of my jacket pocket. "If that's not stalking, then what is?"
I began to press the detective's number to call her, and I heard the distinctive ringing of the call being made.
Surely she would be pleased to hear that I had completed the assignment she had given me. I myself was rather surprised that I had succeeded.
Like what, there was a first time for everything.
"Flowers? What are you talking about? " He exclaimed, trying to look me in the eyes, still stirring slightly to try to free himself; but less sharply than before. "All I did was call her landline! "
I was troubled by this admission. For as I watched his expression, I saw that something was wrong.
He was the person I had seen watching us earlier from the corner of a building. And he was the person who had been calling Mrs. Munehara all the time for the last few weeks. But in that case, why say that the flowers were not from him? Why lie while admitting everything else?
No.
Judging by his current expression, he wasn't lying. He didn't have a shifty look in his eyes or dilated pupils.
He wasn't lying when he said the flowers weren't his.
It didn't make sense.
And the phone had been ringing for several seconds already, with no one picking up on the other end.
Couldn't she hear her phone ringing?
"So you admit to calling her over and over? "I asked, a strange feeling of discomfort taking over my stomach.
"Yes! It was me! But I didn't mean to harass her! "The young man defended himself by giving me a desperate look.
What did he meant by that?
Intrigued, I shifted my weight to the side, allowing him to move and turn a little more towards me.
And the phone was still ringing, the detective not answering my call.
Perhaps I had unconsciously frowned, for he regained his composure, and looking me straight in the eye, exclaimed again:
"Sir! You must believe me! "He said, pleading with me. "All I wanted was for her to leave this apartment! "
What this kid was saying really didn't make any sense.
Unless...
"She had to leave! "The young man insisted, still looking me straight in the eyes, almost on the verge of tears. "She's not alone there! "
Then I heard the muffled and barely audible sound of a glass or ceramic object shattering into a thousand pieces.
But I had no doubt as to its location: the noise was coming from the residence.
I looked up and saw that Ms. Munehara's apartment was completely dark.
The apartment where the detective had been alone all this time.
Where the detective had been, but wasn't answering the phone.
Where the detective had been...
And probably hadn't actually been alone all along.